#AmazonBasket lets you shop on Twitter with hashtags

Amazon and Twitter have teamed up to launch #AmazonBasket, a cool social shopping service that allows you to add things to your shopping basket just by tweeting about them.

Launched over the Bank Holiday Weekend, #AmazonBasket (yep, the hashtag before it seems obligatory) allows shoppers to instantly add products to their Amazon shopping baskets. All they have to do is update their Amazon settings, tweet with a URL to an Amazon product and include the #AmazonBasket hashtag and it gets automatically added. They can then go and pay for the items later.

So far the service has only been rolled out to UK and US users – in the US it’s called #AmazonCart, as you can see from the promo video above – and is an exciting new step in Twitter’s bid to monetise its popular platform.

The big question is whether tweeting about a product will make the shopping experience easier and more enjoyable for regular customers? In theory, we’d say no. But Amazon has been encouraging people to get involved and use #AmazonBasket by tweeting “deals of the day”, which is bound to appeal to bargain hunters and convert them to Twitter shopping in no time.